Ultimate Spiderman was released in the year 2000. Is it worth a read? Definitely, Yes! Spiderman, a 15-year-old Superhero is a story made for Teenagers. And Ultimate Spiderman does a wonderful job of exploring the life of Peter Parker. Even if you leave the Superhero element aside, the comic book explores the troubles teenagers face, whether it’s bullying, love, friendship, studies, or taking responsibility for their actions. Ultimate Spiderman is a good place for teenagers to connect with Peter and learn from his life journey, to be a good person, and help anyone who is in need of help, without expecting anything in return. You don’t need Superhuman Spider powers to do good in the world, your average human abilities are just as much a gift as Peter’s Spider powers. That’s what I learned from Spiderman when I was a teenager and even though I haven’t saved any humans, I have successfully saved 100 stray dogs in my neighborhood. Thanks to the inspiration of our Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman.
Now let’s talk about Issue 01. This Issue takes quite a detailed journey on what Peter’s life is as a 15 year old teenager. The one thing I love about Ultimate Spiderman is that even though Peter is still a nerd, he has a very cool hairstyle. Up until now, Peter’s character was always shown as unattractive and had average looks. But this character design was super-cute with a Coooool hairstyle. As usual, Issue 01 covers the Origin Story, but it had 50 pages instead of the standard 25 pages. I’m guessing they published a Double-sized Issue in order to do justice to the Origin Story. Now I’m going to compare this Comic Book with the first ‘Spiderman’ movie that came out in 2002, the one with Tobey Maguire. Cause we all admit, the Origin Story in Spiderman 2002 was quite perfect. So, let’s get started with Ultimate Spiderman Issue 01.
I loved that the Writer focused on Peter’s life before he was bitten by the Genetically Enhanced Spider. Peter felt extremely helpless as he was constantly teased on, and the Issue is also aptly named ‘Powerless’. Peter’s classmates Flash and Kong consistently made fun of Peter and used him as a punching bag. In the movie Peter felt invisible, in this comic book, Peter was actually bullied, which was more heart-wrenching.
But luckily Peter didn’t have a completely miserable life, his Aunt and Uncle were extremely loving and supportive. And he also had a lady admirer. Yes, Maryjane had a crush on Peter from the very beginning. As you know, in the movie, Peter has an eternal crush on Maryjane, but in the comic book, Peter is unaware of Maryjane’s fondness for him. Perhaps, Peter was too young to know romance and love, maybe his hormones hadn’t kicked in, or perhaps, he was just too burdened with the bullying and dealing with the loss of his parents. Either way, it was refreshing to know that Maryjane had a thing for Peter. Cause I’m tired of the one-sided love story where the Protagonist always has a crush on his dreamgirl and the girl is too busy dating someone else, and our Hero is pinning and suffering in silence.
This storyline also had a unique arc where Norman Orborn knew that his Genetically Enhanced Spider had bitten Peter. Norman was secretly observing Peter to study any adverse effects of the bite. And it was interesting to know that Peter’s cells were deteriorating after the spider bite. He could have died, had his body not figured out a way to adjust or adapt to the mutation.
Apart from all these interesting differences from the Spiderman 2002 movie, I loved the fact that Peter was simply shown to act his age, he was 15 and had no clue how to deal with bullying, socializing, family, and his new abilities. Tom Holland’s Spiderman did a good job of showing a teenage Spiderman, but I did not enjoy the story as much and Tony Stark can be a lousy mentor.
The one thing I did not like was that at the end of the Comic Book, Peter is shown laying in his bed, and he gets a feeling to try and crawl the wall. Now this part of the story was driven completely through drawings and frames. I would have preferred if Peter’s thought process was depicted through a Thought Bubble. This scene is almost similar to the Tobey Maguire one. In the movie they showed the tiny setules which help a Spider crawl almost any surface. I understand the movie couldn’t show Tobey’s thought process due to the lack of screen time. But I expected it from the Comic Book. I would have liked it if they would have shown his thought process. On the other hand, the canteen fight with Flash Thompson was the best in the movie. The Comic Books failed to come up with something amazing like that.
There is much more in the Comic Book, so if you want a good Spiderman Series to venture across, Ultimate Spiderman is a good Series. I loved it and I’m definitely planning on completing the whole series. Ultimate Spiderman takes us through Spiderman’s life journey at a satisfyingly slow pace, and you can see how he learns new skills, gains knowledge about the underworld, encounters new threats, fights new villains, and becomes the Ultimate Spiderman one day.
